JERUSALEM: A report severely criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership in the 2014 Gaza war may weaken the self-styled “Mr Security,” analysts say.
The state inquiry published Tuesday attacked Netanyahu’s governing style throughout the war in which 68 Israeli soldiers died, prompting opposition figures to demand his resignation.
Netanyahu lashed out at the report, accusing the state comptroller who penned it of attacking the army, but canceled a planned public speech on short notice Wednesday evening, with his office saying he was unwell.
The report comes as Netanyahu, a man with a reputation as a political survivor in his eighth consecutive year as leader, is seeking to limit potential damage from a series of corruption investigations.
Analysts said while the report was unlikely to bring about his resignation, Netanyahu’s reputation for being the best man to protect Israel was at risk.
The report by state comptroller Yossef Shapira accused Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon of not fully preparing for the threat of attack tunnels dug by Hamas, the party that runs Gaza.
It said the two men did not fully share information they had on tunnels with other members of the security cabinet, speaking instead in “sparse and general” terms.
They also failed to provide ministers with “significant and essential information,” necessary to make “well-informed decisions.”
The report did not call for resignations, however.
The war killed 2,251 Palestinians and left 100,000 homeless, according to the UN.
On the Israeli side, 74 people were killed, all but six of them soldiers.
The tunnels were among the Palestinians’ most effective weapons during the 50-day conflict.
In one particularly notable attack, five soldiers were killed when a Hamas fighter emerged from a tunnel near the Nahal Oz kibbutz inside Israel on July 29, 2014.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog called for Netanyahu to step down in the wake of the report.
Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent at The Jerusalem Post, said that was unlikely immediately but it would damage the prime minister’s reputation.
Netanyahu won the last elections in 2015 in large part because he was seen as the most competent leader for Israel’s security, Hoffman said.
“Netanyahu has persuaded Israelis that he and only he can make them feel safe,” he told AFP.
“If there is a security figure running in the election next time he can just wave the report and say ‘not so fast.’ ”
Netanyahu is also facing a series of corruption allegations that have fed speculation about potential snap elections.
“The corruption allegations make him much weaker and this just adds fuel to the fire,” Hoffman added.
The person best placed to gain is Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who consistently accused Netanyahu of not sharing information during the war.
“The report gives credit to Bennett (saying) he was asking the right questions,” Yossi Mekelberg from the London-based Chatham House think tank said. “He did not get proper answers.”
Bennett, seen as a major right-wing challenger to Netanyahu, has remained silent, though his colleague in the Jewish Home party Ayalet Shaked backed the report’s findings.
Itamar Yaar, former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council, defended Netanyahu and the military’s concerns about Bennett.
He told AFP the Jewish Home leader had a reputation for leaking, making Netanyahu and military leaders wary that information shared with him would get into the public domain.
In 2007 a preliminary report into the 2006 war with Lebanon severely criticized then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Netanyahu himself, then leader of the opposition, called on Olmert to resign and encouraged protests, with tens of thousands turning out on the streets.
“Those who failed at war cannot be those who correct the failures,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Olmert hung on but resigned a year later amid corruption allegations, in what Hoffman said was a parallel of current events.
For Netanyahu, Gaza report risks ‘Mr Security’ reputation
For Netanyahu, Gaza report risks ‘Mr Security’ reputation
First responders enter devastated Aleppo neighborhood after days of deadly fighting
- The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army
ALEPPO, Syria: First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.
The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.
The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.
The US-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Daesh group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria’s national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”
The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.
Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid Al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.
The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.
On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.
Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.
“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”
Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.
Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.
“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.
